Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Literary competition news

Congratulations to all who have been long-listed for the Frank O'Connor international short story award 2011, the world's largest short story prize, and particularly to four of our previous WH short story competition finalists, Jo Cannon, Vanessa Gebbie, Valerie Trueblood and Tom Vowler. They are in the running with the likes of Yiyun Li and Colm Toibín.

Great website. I never thought I'd find a website that appreciated the strange intensity of Willesden sunsets. It sounds ridiculous to say you don't see them anywhere else - but it's true isn't it?
- Zadie Smith (comments)

Despite your outrageous heightism, I would be very happy to take up your case with the Council...
- The Rt. Hon. Sarah Teather MP, Brent East
(Dear Feargal)

As you know yourself, the quest for form - the search for the voice and scale necessary to what one wishes to say
- is the primary effort of writing. This may lead one into novel writing at one point, and into the writing of sonnets later on
- rather as Beethoven confined himself almost exclusively to the string quartet after finishing the Op 125 symphony.
- Rana Dasgupta (Dear Feargal)

a note from Red Woodward

We have asked our columnists time and again only to post stories that are not not untrue, but frankly it would be easier to train monkeys. Please tell us if we have inadvertently hit on something not not true, and we will uncorrect it. (Ed.)

the wisdom of Red Woodward

"Never trust anybody honest."

"This whole everybody dying malarkey has got beyond a joke."

"One of these days you'll hear that I died. That's what I'll miss, hearing all the news."

"What a person says a lot about says a lot about a person."

"Minimalism is the biggest load of crap ever."

"There's no such thing as waiting. You are either doing something useful or you are doing something useless."

"Meditation? It's a racket."

"You can put me in a box when I pop my clogs but not before."

"Evidently I'm past my sell by date but not my use by date."

"In life, you either do something and feel guilty about it, or do nothing and feel guilty about it. There is no in-between."

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